India might be touted as underdogs in the much-anticipated football friendly against China here on Saturday, but national coach Stephen Constantine is confident of giving a good fight to their higher-ranked opponents.<\/p>\n
India and China will go head to head in a football friendly for the first time in 21 years on Saturday with the home team a firm favourite despite poor recent form.<\/p>\n
The Indian team is playing an international match for the first time in China through their senior sides have faced each other 17 times in the past. China has played in India seven times, all of them in the invitational tournament Nehru Cup.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe conditions are ideal and it\u2019s going to be a crucial game for us before the Asian Cup. It\u2019s really going to be a great football contest for all of us and the entire team is looking forward to it,\u201d Constantine said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would like to thank Chinese Federation for their hospitality and warm reception that we have got since we have landed here. We have trained on it and the pitch is in super condition. We are all now looking forward to the match,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Despite the fact that the Red Dragons have failed to churn out positive results of late, Constantine warned his boys \u201cnot to get fooled\u201d by their rivals\u2019 recent outcomes.<\/p>\n
\u201cRome was not built in a day. Surely, we won\u2019t get fooled by the recent results of the Chinese Team. They are a very good side as well as they have a great coach. I understand that everybody wants\u00a0immediate results but it takes time to build the team. I\u00a0think\u00a0Mr. Lippi is trying to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a very good scouting system in India and we have found players which others couldn’t scout. I always look for the young players. Yes, we can’t substitute experience with the youngsters\u2019 love for the game but we are trying to make a mix,\u201d he quipped.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe U23 team has performed quite well recently and it can be the p<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
India might be touted as underdogs in the much-anticipated football friendly against China here on Saturday, but national coach Stephen Constantine is confident of giving a good fight to their higher-ranked opponents. India and China will go head to head in a football friendly for the first time in 21 years on Saturday with the home team a firm favourite despite poor recent form. The Indian team is playing an international match for the first time in China through their senior sides have faced each other 17 times in the past. China has played in India seven times, all of them in the invitational tournament Nehru Cup. \u201cThe conditions are … Continue reading “India and China will go head to head in a football friendly for the first time in 21 years”<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":1321,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,27],"tags":[76,574,575],"class_list":["post-1320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-india","category-indian-national-football-team","tag-aiff","tag-india-vs-china","tag-international-friendly"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}